Goodreads Librarians Group discussion

I'm working on disentangling Dorothy Dunnett's Johnson Johnson (or "Dolly") mystery series. There are seven of them, and their internal chronology doesn't match the order in which they were published. Am I correct that they ought to be numbered according to the chronology of their events, regardless of their publication dates?

Further complicating things, some of the books go by as many as three titles: An original UK title (with "Dolly and the ____ Bird" in it), sometimes a renamed US title, and then a renamed UK title. (They're all here: http://www.dorothydunnett.co.uk/dubib...#). The extant Goodreads series pages is consequently a bit of a mess, title-wise: http://www.goodreads.com/series/51858.... Furthermore, the order is wrong, if we're going by chronology of the books' events. "Tropical Issue" was published last, but its events take place first.

How should I proceed on this?

I would probably treat it like the Narnia stories and have TWO series. One of publication order amd one of internal order. Just because, say, the 10th book takes place between books 2 and 3 does NOT mean that it should be read between books 2 and 3. (Narnia again)

In general, the best order for series is what the author lists on their website. The Dorothy Dunnett Society lists the books in order of publication so I would list the series as such.

Unfortunately there's nothing to be done about the titles on the series. The book that shows there is the most shelved edition of the work, so it's out of our control to change.

Thank you so much!

Glad I'm not the only on who immediately thought of Narnia with this issue.

Is there a post that explains how to add the same seven books to two different series, and to link them?